Just ten days ago, your Lone Ranger here laid out why one should see the barely beginning downturn of the housing market in Seattle as the bellwether for a national housing market bust. Naturally a snowflake or two of criticism landed on my nose to say I knew nothing about real estate. That being the case, look at how the world has changed in so little time to catch up with me. An idea that you may have read here first is now mainstream news in every housing fact being reported across the nation and around the world.

Home prices are still rising pretty much everywhere in the US, with California as usual leading the way. State-wide, the median CA home is now above $600,000, up 9% year over year. In San Francisco County, homebuyers are paying an average of 18% above the asking price, and price per square foot is now more than $1,000.

Donald Trump has made good on one of his most audacious campaign promises by submitting what he describes as the biggest tax cut in U.S. History. For once, at least, this does not appear to be Trumpian braggadocio. It really may be the mother of all tax cuts. But if passed, what may this bunker buster do to the economy? While I have rarely met a tax cut I didn’t like, this one just may be more likely to send the economy into a downward spiral than it is to send up to orbit.

Should the Fed raise interest rates? Some believe that ultra-low interest rates are good for investors because they drive up the prices of stocks and real estate, fattening household balance sheets. Others counter that zero rates are an insidious tax, transferring wealth from borrowers to lenders, distorting incentives and misallocating capital for individuals and government and making the American investor poorer over time.

Where you stand on the Fed raising rates is likely to depend on which of these two positions you support.

We think the latter. Zero interest rates – which translate to negative real interest rates after inflation – are a massive transfer of wealth from investors to governments and other borrowers around the world. We’ll show that the scale of the transfer is nearly $1 trillion per year in the U.S. alone and will argue that the zero-interest-rate policy lowers expected returns on stocks and real estate as well.

Low interest rates hurt more than just investors. Everyone suffers because low rates distort consumption and investment decisions, potentially causing economic growth to be slower than it otherwise would be. Initially, in 2008-2009, low interest rates were an element or consequence of a policy of liquidity injection needed to avoid a collapse of the banking system and serious depression. Since then, however, they have become a tool of stimulative macro policy with limited success.

I have often wondered when the media would catch on to the REAL story about why the housing market is so slow to comeback, in terms of borrows applying for a mortgage. Particularly since The Federal Reserve has help the holders of capital with it’s monetary expansion.